


God bless the diner

by Chocolatefrog



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe- Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Bad Touch Trio, Fluff, M/M, Swearing, alternate universe - diner, im so sorry idek what the heck this even is, slight crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:12:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3653379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocolatefrog/pseuds/Chocolatefrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: how the (freeloading) members of the Bad Touch Trio find their soulmates in a cheap diner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God bless the diner

                Gilbert Beilschmidt had always pretended not to care about the stupid soulmate tattoo on the back of his neck. It had appeared, as soulmate tattoos were wont to do, randomly. He doesn’t even remember what he was doing when it had appeared. He had just registered a ticklish feeling, like someone writing on his skin with a feather. He’d asked Francis and Antonio to take a look at it.

 

                “’ _That was so not awesome_ ,’” Francis had said. “Gil…”

 

                “What? What did they say that wasn’t awesome?” he’d asked.

 

                “That’s it, that’s what they said, amigo,” Antonio replied.

 

                “Oh.”

 

                Anyway, Gil never put too much stock in the whole soulmate thing anyway. Was it really going to work out with someone whose first words spoken to him were telling him he isn’t the awesome Gil? Who did this soulmate think they were anyway?

 

                “But, mon ami, soulmates are a magical thing! The first words you hear from them are supposed to be a monumental, life-changing, fantastic thing!” Francis was saying, waving around an unnaturally large and greasy French fry in Gil’s face. The three of them were in Francis’s uncle’s cheap diner where they could get away with free French fries as long as one of them ordered a smoothie. Francis worked there as a waiter, and Gil sometimes provided entertainment during their Open Mic Night. It was technically Francis’s shift at the place right now but they all figured ten minutes or so of slacking would be okay.

 

                “That’s easy for you to say, you giant baguette,” Gilbert grumbled, batting away the French fry. Francis had probably the most romantic words on his wrist out of the three of them—‘ _I’ve been waiting for you for a lifetime._ ’

 

                “I hate to say it, Francis, but Gil is right,” Antonio said, pausing to take a sip of his (frankly kind of gross) tomato smoothie. His tattoo was the worst, in Gilbert’s opinion—‘ _Watch where you’re going, fucking bastard’_ right on his collarbone. “You are a giant baguette.”

 

                “Thank you, Toni, you lovable tomato freak,” Gil said lovingly.

 

                “Really, amigo? Tomato freak?”

 

                “Fine, you’re a tomato god.”

 

                “Ah, gracias, potatohead.” Just as he and Antonio were getting into their usual conversation, one of the staff called Francis’s name.

 

                “Francis! Could you attend to the guy who walked in fifteen minutes ago?” called Margie, one of the diner’s waitresses. Francis threw her a smile. “He’s in table four.”

 

                “All right, doll,” Francis blew her a kiss. She blushed a deep red.

 

                Gilbert and Antonio watched as Francis dragged himself over to a blond guy who looked around their age, was probably an eleven on an angriness scale of one to ten, and had eyebrows the size of a small continent.

 

                “Good afternoon, sir, may I take your order?” Francis said.

 

                “Oh, thank God,” the guy said to himself. He looked up from the diner menu at Francis. His eyes were green. “I’ve been waiting for you for a lifetime. I’ll have a—”

 

                “Oh my god it’s you,” whispered Francis. “Oh my god, what did you say?”

 

                “Huh? Wait, did you say—“ The guy rolled up his prim and proper button-up polo sleeve to show Francis the words on his wrist, ‘ _Oh my god it’s you_ ’. Francis did the same, holding up his tattoo.

 

                “You’re my—“

 

                “So you’re my—“

 

               “Yes, it looks like it… So, how about some coffee sometime?” Francis said hesitantly. Which was weird. He had never been hesitant about asking someone out before, Gil knew.

 

              “Yeah… Yeah, actually, how about you join me now?” The guy gestured to the seat opposite him, and Francis sat down. Gil sighed as they started talking, Francis gaining his usual grace, and the guy becoming more animated.

 

                “Why the fuck did we not record this, Tomatonio?!”

 

* * *

 

               A few weeks passed after the incident, and they learned that the guy’s name was Arthur Kirkland and he was interning at a museum for magical artifacts, or something. He and Francis were still treading lightly around each other, something which weirded Gil out a bit. By this time in a normal relationship, Francis would have already moved on to three other relationships.

 

                “Have you and Arthur even kissed yet?” Gilbert asked curiously.

 

                “We’ve held hands!”

 

                “You didn’t answer the question.”

 

              The four of them, including Arthur now, were walking towards the diner. Antonio was carrying a paper bag full of tomatoes that his mom wanted him to give to Francis’s uncle after hearing that they freeload quite a lot at the diner. Antonio was quite proud of his tomatoes; he had drunkenly said on more than one occasion that ‘his blood runs red from the tomato passion that flows through his veins’.

 

                “Do you need a little help with that, Toni?” Arthur politely asked.

 

              “I don’t want help from you,” Antonio scathingly replied. Surprisingly, he hadn’t taken to Arthur that well for some reason. ‘He just rubs me the wrong way, like he wants to take everything I love and burn it. Actually, I kind of want to do that to him too,’ Antonio had said.

 

                “Be nice, you two,” warned Francis. “And Toni, you could use some help. That paper bag is bigger than your lovely head.”

 

                “Yeah, c’mon, your tomatoes will still survive if someone else is carrying them,” Gilbert put in.

 

                “I’m fine, gracias, and I can walk to the diner blindfolded, you know that, amigos,” Antonio said. “Anyway, we’re just a block away now and _woah_ —“

 

                “Watch where you’re going, fucking bastard,” snarled a well-dressed Italian as Antonio’s tomatoes spilled out of the bag and onto the dirty cement pavement.

 

                “My poor tomato children, what have you done to them?” Antonio panicked, scrambling around for his tomatoes.

 

                “Fucking hell, you’re my soulmate,” the Italian whispered, watching his soulmate pick up his fallen tomato children from the pavement.

 

                “Why don’t we give them some space, everyone?” Francis said.

 

               The new pair walked behind Francis, Arthur and Gil. The Italian wasn’t very pleased by the situation, as far as Gil could tell. He kept grumbling about ‘fucking soulmates and their fucking tomatoes,’ audible even from a distance.

 

                Beside him, Francis and Arthur were arguing about food, which was supposedly a problem spot in their burgeoning relationship. Apparently Arthur likes British food more than any other cuisine.

 

                “But, Arthur, dear, British food has something called spotted dick—”

 

                “At least spotted dick is just pudding with raisins and things! You French eat fucking _snails,_ for God’s sake—“

 

                “And they taste amazing because the French are able to make even simple snails taste _incredible_ —“

 

                “Oh for God’s sake—“

 

                Behind him, Gil could still hear the Italian guy muttering to himself.

 

                “Holy crap,” Gilbert said to himself. “Am I the only single person here?”

 

* * *

 

                It was Friday, which meant it was Open Mic Night for the diner. Gilbert usually had a marionette kind of segment he liked to do with his pet bird, Gilbird. This time though, he had something different in mind. He was going to… juggle.

 

                “Really, mon ami? Juggling?” Francis said dryly. “I didn’t think Open Mic Night was conducive to that.”

 

                “Have you ever successfully juggled, amigo?” Antonio asked, concerned.

 

                “It’ll be fine, you guys, and juggling has never actually killed anyone yet,” Gil protested. He’ll just be juggling Gilbird and four of his other bird friends. “Besides, if I can’t catch them, they’d just fly off anyway, so it’s not like I’m in danger of anything.”

 

                The performer before his act was finishing up his unfunny stand-up comedy piece about an alien and heroism or something, Gil wasn’t really paying attention. The guy was kind of obnoxious. His ears, sensing a kindred spirit, tuned him out. Like charges repel, after all. The guy ended his piece by throwing up his dumb bomber jacket which hit the curtain pole. The jacket didn’t come back down. The pole wobbled dangerously.

 

                “And for the last performance, we have the weekly Gilbert Beilschmidt act! Let’s give him a warm diner welcome!” announced Margie the waitress.

 

             Gil swaggered onto the platform with the familiar glare of the cheap spotlight in his eyes. “Let’s get this party started! Instead of my usual thing of asking Gilbird awkward bird questions—“, the ones familiar with his act sighed or rolled their eyes, “—I’ll be doing something new! I promise you, this is going to be awesome.”

 

                He took a deep breath. He tossed Gilbird and the bird friends into the air like he saw an actual juggler do, and waited to feel the juggling magic pass through his arms. Wasn’t that how jugglers did it? Apparently not.

 

                He had thrown some of the birds up too high, and it was dangerously close to the already unstable curtain pole. Just his luck. The birds flew themselves to the nearest place where they could land—that _verdammt_ pole. Again, as if slow motion, the pole wobbled dangerously. This time though—

 

                “Ow!”

 

                The pole fell and smacked him right between the eyes, the curtain swallowed him whole, and the birds fled in fear. He could feel something wet dripping down his left shoulder. Ugh, gross, the birds got really scared, there was bird shit on his fucking shoulder, and it was dark as hell. Scheiße.

 

                “That was so not awesome,” a disembodied voice snorted. A sturdy-looking hand lifted Gil’s curtain prison. Oddly colored eyes (purple?) peered out from underneath. “You all right? Please don’t sue us, by the way.”

 

                “You smell like pancakes,” Gil said stupidly. What the fuck, Beilschmidt.

 

                “Is that a concussion? Oh my God, I’m sorry, I didn’t think that would cause an actual concussion, please don’t sue us, I should’ve known it could hurt someone, it was a giant metal pole—“ the voice paused. “Wait, did you just say—“

 

              “Yup, and actually I’m fine, really, and I’m not going to sue,” Gilbert lifted the curtain completely off his head. The guy with purple eyes and sturdy hands and a tendency to ramble was the single most beautiful sight he’d seen in his entire life. The glaring spotlight framed his head, making his blond hair glow. And to top it all off, the birds had congregated on his shoulders. “Looks like we’re soulmates, eh, Birdie?”

 

                “Birdie?”

 

                Gilbert gestured to his shoulders.

 

                “Oh, well, actually, I’m Matthew Williams. Gilbert Beilschmidt, right? You’re one of the freeloaders at the diner?”

 

                “How the hell did you even—“

 

           “Well, I work here. My dad owns the place. Convenient, eh? Francis is actually my cousin,” Matthew tucks a lock of golden hair behind his ear, and Gil’s fingers unconsciously follow, putting his hand on Matthew’s face. “Funny story, when I saw that my soulmate’s first words to me were ‘ _You smell like pancakes_ ’, I started making pancakes every morning so I could meet them. Turns out it’s one of the loud freeloaders that I never speak to. So, you know, weird, eh?”

 

                “How come you’ve never spoken to me?”

 

                “Never really had to. Francis always takes your orders because otherwise you guys can’t freeload,” Matthew says, matter-of-fact.

 

                “So, like, can we talk in private without thirty people watching us and, you know, get off the stage?”

 

* * *

 

                “God bless this fucking diner,” Gilbert declared, one arm around Matthew, the other grabbing some fries. “Let’s raise a fry to this good ol’ diner!”

 

                Together, Francis, Arthur, Antonio, Lovino, Gilbert and Matthew took a fry and raised it to the center of their usual booth solemnly.

 

                “To the diner!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was super fun to write! This wasn't proofread btw so comment or something if you spot a mistake!! I just got back into the Hetalia fandom btw so the characterizations above may not fit right with the actual characters but I like to think they do. 
> 
> Poor Lovino with his 'My poor tomato children, what have you done to them' tattoo.
> 
> Also, I love that Gil's a nicknamer. 'Potatohead' ain't got nothing on 'Tomatonio'.
> 
> I also have a tumblr but it isn't really Hetalia-related?? [Say hi if you want!!!](http://taichimashima.tumblr.com)


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